


Tasting Flights

by Deisderium



Series: have your cake and eat it too [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Absent Parents, Birthday, Birthday Presents, Canonical Character Death, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Graduation, Grief/Mourning, Hasty decisions, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pastry Chef Steve rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, RIP Steve's Shirt, Recreational Drug Use, Sharing Clothes, Sommelier Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Workplace Sex, tentative friendship, wine and cheese
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-04 22:04:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17906525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deisderium/pseuds/Deisderium
Summary: Each chapter is a one-shot set in the Let Them Eat Cake 'verse.  They're not in chronological order, and the rating will vary for each one. (I'll note it in the chapter summary.)





	1. Funeral Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve donates blood and a man makes him an offer after his mother's funeral.
> 
> The rating on this one is Gen (maybe Teen for swearing?). I wrote it to try and figure out how LTEC Steve would have joined up for Project: Rebirth and gotten from the pastry kitchen to the Avengers initiative. It's less fluffy than the rest of these will be, and I didn't want to post it until I had some fluff to follow it up. <3

🍰

Steve is pissed off. 

Steve is _always_ pissed off. Nothing is fair, and nothing has ever been fair, and it's not that he expects it for himself. His body is his oldest enemy and that's just how it is. His lungs don't work right, his stomach attacks itself, his bones don't have the decency to grow straight, he's had extra teeth poking through his gumline since he was ten, and oral surgery they couldn't really afford since he was twelve. He's allergic to fucking everything. His left ear barely works. His cones don't process light right, so green and red bleed into each other. He'll never be able to just _do_ anything--just go hiking without an inhaler and a battalion of epipens. Eat a meal without asking a fuckload of questions. Wake up in the morning and look at the clock without searching for his glasses. 

But that's his lot, and it's okay, because as long as he's alive, he's still fighting. 

Still fighting in his case means drawing breath, yes, but it also means standing up to be counted on the side of what's right, because nothing is fair, but he fucking well expects better. If not of life, then of himself.  

In the past, that's meant going to protests, or punching assholes, or making sure his doctors actually read his goddamn complicated file. 

But the person it's not fair now for is his _mom_ , and no amount of fighting seems to make anything better. 

"Steve." He turns to look at her. Sarah Rogers with a cannula in her nose is just as goddamn beautiful as the Sarah Rogers of his memory without one. "Tell me all about the restaurant. What are you making?" It's his first big job at a good restaurant, and he's gotten a little attention for what he's making. It's what he's been working toward for years, but now that he has it, he almost doesn't care. But he tells her about it anyway.

"Getting really good at rolling out fondant. When you get out of here, I'm gonna make you the fanciest cake." Sarah summons a smile that is the wraith of the one he grew up with. Neither one of them acknowledges that she's not getting out of the hospital this time. 

Instead, she says, "Fondant? Ugh. You better bring me something that tastes good, not something that looks good," so Steve spends a while telling her about pear tarts and chocolate lava cake and showing her pictures on his phone, until she drifts off to sleep. 

A little later, a nurse comes in. "Visiting hours are over, honey." 

Steve pulls the blanket up over Sarah's shoulder. "Tell her I'll see her tomorrow, okay? I'll bring her some cupcakes."

"I'll tell her," the nurse promises, and Steve leaves the room, eyes burning. He stops in the hall outside his mother's room and lets his head tip back against the wall, wishing for--he doesn't even know what. That his mom was coming home.  That he was ever going to get that cake. That they were going to get to have a normal life together again. 

"Sir, are you all right?" It's not one of the nurses he knows. Steve smiles, probably wanly, and heads for the elevators. 

The sadness in the bottom of his gullet transmits right back to anger. It's so much bullshit. Sarah Rogers never smoked a cigarette a day in her life, and now she's got lung cancer. And their shitty, expensive insurance--expensive because of _him_ , because his body is a walking dumpster fire--means Sarah delayed going to get checked out. By the time they found the cancer, it had metastasized into her spine. Her brain. All the fuck over. And there's nothing he can _do_. 

Somewhere back in his brain, he knows he's so angry about this because it's the only way he can keep from collapsing into a pile of terror and despair. That, and lowering his head and bullrushing a problem has always been his first response. He can't fight this, though. He wishes he could.

There's a blood donation van outside the hospital, though, and that at least is something he can do to help, even if it won't do anything for Sarah. He marches over and fills out the paperwork, waits his turn, then rolls up his sleeve. "You sure you got enough to spare?" the lady asks, and he gives her a flat stare. He is zero percent in the mood for this rando to joke about how small he is.  

When he's done and sipping his juice with a bandage wrapped around his elbow, a man comes over with a clipboard. Unlike most of the people here, he's dressed in a suit, not scrubs.

"Mr. Rogers?" 

Steve nods to say yes, that's him. 

"There's a test for an experimental therapy that's being developed in conjunction with several government agencies and private concerns. We're collecting samples of different blood types to test the therapy. The samples will be drawn from the blood you've already donated and your identifying details will be completely randomized. Would you like to participate?"

"Therapy for what?" Steve says suspiciously. 

"A variety of auto-immune disorders. I'm afraid I can't be more specific than that."

Steve's objections melt away. Hell, his blood might be extremely useful for this project, he's got so much shit wrong with him. And if everything is anonymous... "Sure. I'll do it." 

"Thank you, Mr. Rogers." He hands over the clipboard. "If you'll just fill out this consent form..." 

So Steve does. He's a little distracted by his anger, so he doesn't read the fine print as closely as he might; but he signs it and forgets about it, secure in the knowledge that his blood is going to be helpful even if he personally isn't. 

Two weeks later, Sarah Rogers dies. 

🍰

Steve sits in their--in _his_ apartment in his funeral black, his eyes dry, a hollow place carved into his chest. He knows what heart problems feel like; this isn't that. This is just grief, solid and physical and aching. His mother is in the ground, and he'll never get to see her again. Never go to her for advice. She was his fiercest advocate and his best friend, with him for every god-awful medical event. For his bisexual awakening. For every cause he ever threw himself into despite his own limitations: disability advocacy, queer rights, immigration. She helped shepherd him through childhood into the person he is now: supporting without smothering, letting him find out who he was  without dictating who she thought he should be.

He misses her already. 

There's been so much he had to do to get to the funeral, and now his days stretch in front of him. Empty. He has to get back to work, and he knows it, but the thought feels like he's choking. He should eat something, but looking at all the well-meant casseroles, he knows he won't. 

He's just staring, not really doing anything, when someone knocks at the door. He's expecting another neighbor with food, maybe, not a stranger in a suit, but a stranger in a suit is what he gets. 

"Can I help you?" Steve knows his eyes are red. He knows his voice is flat. 

"Mr. Steven Rogers?" the man asks. 

"That's me." Steve opens the door a little wider automatically, but he doesn't let the guy in. He can see the guy's eyes travelling over the masses of flowers, the sympathy cards propped up on the kitchen counters. His gaze snaps back to Steve, takes in the suit a second time, but with more context. 

"If this is a bad time," the guy says slowly. 

Steve shrugs. "If I'm gonna be real honest, I don't foresee a good time any time soon." 

"I'm sorry for your loss," the man says, which. He doesn't know what Steve's loss is, but okay. 

"Thanks," Steve says anyway, because his mom would have.

"Several weeks ago, you donated blood," the man begins, and Steve feels his focus snap back to something sharper than it's been in weeks, maybe months. Nobody ever said Steve was stupid. 

"I signed a form. All of my information was supposed to anonymous. Randomized." 

The man spreads his hands carefully. "Almost all of it was. But any sample that came in with certain genetic markers was kept for further analysis. There was some language in subclause  VII to indicate--" 

"You're gonna have to explain what that means," Steve growls. "I thought I was helping people." He's not thrilled about the violation of his privacy, subclause VII notwithstanding.

"It means you might have a chance to help a lot more people," the man says. 

Steve bites down on his first response and asks, "How?"

The man looks at him sidelong and sets down a brochure. Steve glances down at it and sees the words PROJECT: REBIRTH stamped across the top. "Honestly, sir, it's mostly confidential unless you sign, but I can tell you a little about it." 

Steve chews on his lip. "Give me the broad strokes."

 The man sort of hems and haws about it, but what Steve eventually gets out of it is that it's an experimental procedure that's been developed (by who the guy doesn't exactly say) that is meant to make someone stronger, and Steve has whatever genetic markers they think will make the experiment likely to work. It also sounds like it might go some way to helping with at least some of his conditions. 

"Stronger? What's the point of that, exactly?" 

"Should the procedure be successful," the man says, "you'd be working with a team of individuals who are deployed into delicate situations and resolve conflicts using a unique skillset."

"What skillset?" Steve can't tell if the guy is talking about, like, Navy Seal type stuff or what. 

The man grimaces apologetically. "I'm afraid that's confidential as well, unless you sign up for the program. You would, of course, be compensated regardless of the procedure's success or failure."

Steve tells him he has to think about it, takes the brochure and the smooth white business card the man hands over and shuts the door. When he looks around the kitchen, though, it isn't the funeral flowers or the medical bills or the sympathy cards that he's thinking of. It's the way it felt to take a punch when those assholes outside the bar called Connie from the restaurant a bitch for ignoring them when they yelled at her, that righteous fury and the satisfaction of knowing that he was doing good. He thinks of having something concrete to do after months of being only able to helplessly watch. 

By the time he's reheated and eaten a casserole that tastes like nothing as he eats it, he's already decided. 

After dinner, he picks up the card and dials the number embossed on it. "This is Steve Rogers," he says when the voice on the other end of the phone asks. "I'd like to learn more about Project Rebirth."


	2. torn shirt, keep it together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's shirt finally gives way beneath the strain of his shoulders. 
> 
> this prompt is from [Annaslug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annaslug), many thanks!

🍷

It had to happen eventually.

Bucky had been waiting for it since he'd met Steve, really; not consciously, maybe, but every time he saw a button clinging for dear life to Steve's shirt, or one of the white t-shirts he favored straining across the expanse of his chest, he couldn't help watching, just in case. If he'd had a choice, it wouldn't have been at work, but...

Steve wasn't the pastry chef at the Hilltop anymore; after the Extremis op had come to its conclusion, there hadn't been a reason for him to stay, and his Avenging schedule was too erratic to really work with regular restaurant hours. There was a new pastry chef there on the regular, and Steve had set it up (or possibly Natasha had) so that Steve could come in when they were shorthanded or just as an extra set of hands on a shift now and then. It wasn't the same; he didn't get to set the menus or anything, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway, and Bucky wasn't ever going to be sad about getting to see more of Steve.

He was going over the inventory of what wines they'd sold over the last week and what he'd need to reorder from the various distributors. He could do that in the pastry kitchen just as easily as in the office, tapping the sales figures into a spreadsheet as Steve spooned a caramel sauce over thick slices of gingerbread. Occasionally they spoke, but mostly each was focused on his task, just silently enjoying the other's presence.

Until Bucky heard the tell-tale sound of fabric ripping. 

"Huh," Steve said. "Oops."

Bucky looked up. Steve was, as per usual, wearing a shirt that _might_ have fit him before the serum, and as a result, it clung to him like Bucky imagined limpets clung to...whatever they did. The short sleeves were making a valiant effort to join hands on the other side of the redwood tree of his biceps, but that's not where the issue was.

Bucky reached out, and poked him in the shoulder, where the seam had split open.

Steve went still, caramel sauce forgotten.

Bucky reached out more intentionally and traced a line over the ripped seam with his finger.

Steve drew in a breath and twisted to take in the rip along his shoulder.

"I'm not sure what you expect, pal, wearing your shirts two sizes too small," Bucky said, pulling at the rip. Another thread gave up the ghost with a sad little popping noise.

"My shirts fit fine," Steve said. "Nat helped me shop for them."

"When? Before the—before?" Bucky cut himself off before he could say anything too revealing. There was no one else in the dessert area with them, but the kitchen outside it was open. No one here but him knew what Steve's other job was.

"No." Steve shot him a mock-glare and bent to cover the caramel sauce with cling film. The seam ripped a little further, and Steve blushed. Bucky could see the red creeping up the back of his neck, and suppressed a smile.

"I've got some spare shirts upstairs in the office. You can take one of mine before that one falls apart."

"It's not falling apart. It's just a little—" A few more threads popped as Steve stood up. He sighed. "Yeah, it's going. I'd love to borrow a shirt, thanks."

Bucky closed his laptop and the two of them threaded through the kitchen, nodding and saying hi to the cooks who were prepping for the evening's service. They trooped up the stairs to the office. There was a note on the door saying Maryann was out of the office—meeting a client for a potential wedding reception, if he remembered the calendar correctly, which he did—so Bucky fished the key out of his pocket and unlocked it.

The door creaked open to reveal the office: a small room with windows overlooking the dumpster in the parking lot. Bucky plugged his laptop in at his station, a tiny desk under a corkboard with invitations to tastings and potential wine dinners tacked to it.

"Thanks for lending me a shirt," Steve said. His hand came up to prod at the split seam, and Bucky covered his fingers with his own. 

"Hold still," Bucky said. "You're only going to make it worse." Bucky kept one hand on him, the lightest touch on his shoulder, as he went to turn the deadbolt. Steve turned toward the sound.

"Buck..." he said, very quietly, but it wasn't a protest.

Bucky hooked his flesh fingers in the ripped part of Steve's shirt, let the pads of his fingertips settle across the bony parts of Steve's shoulder. Steve shuddered.

"Your shirts are so small," he said. "I'm always half-expecting them to rip. I'm surprised this is the first time it happened. How attached are you to this one?"

"Just gonna throw it away," Steve said.

Bucky nodded and pulled, the sound of the fabric tearing loud in the quiet room. The seam separated completely, the collar loose around his neck, the sleeve still strangling his bicep. Steve's shoulder was pale and freckled, and Bucky leaned forward to lick it, still pulling the rip in his shirt wider. He peeled the fabric away until Steve's chest was half-exposed, the late-afternoon light from the window edging him in gold. Bucky trailed kisses down the broad expanse of Steve's chest to his nipple. He licked over it, the nub of flesh stiffening under his tongue. Steve inhaled, a quiet, shuddery breath that made Bucky want to pull all the sounds from him.

"Is this—we're at work." Steve's voice had gone a half-octave lower.

"Yeah," Bucky said against Steve's chest. "But no one else will be in the office for at least another hour." He looked up and met Steve's eyes. "If you want me to stop—"

"No," Steve said, "keep going."

Bucky yanked at Steve's shirt until it was hanging open and slid both hands over the exposed skin. Steve was so soft over the hard planes of his muscle. His nipples were hardening from the touch or from the cool air, and Bucky bent to lick the right one, rubbing his metal thumb over the other. Steve groaned and his head tilted back.

Bucky stood long enough to push him into the chair by his desk. He grabbed Steve's t-shirt collar with both hands and pulled until it separated.

Steve laughed low in his throat. "You got something against this shirt?"

"I have something against all your shirts, pal." He slid the tattered remains of the shirt in question down Steve's arms until he was naked from the waist up and tossed the offending garment to the side, not caring where it landed. "They get in the way."

Steve grabbed his mismatched wrists, the metal one hidden beneath a photostatic veil, and pulled him closer. Bucky went willingly, straddling him. The chair creaked warningly beneath their combined weight.

Steve was warm and solid beneath him, and Bucky leaned forward to kiss him, his hands digging through Steve's thick hair. He was hard and wanting, but more than anything he wanted to take Steve apart, watch his exposed skin shudder under his hands, as much as was possible under the constraints of where they were and the time they had.

He licked at Steve's lips, Steve chasing him when he pulled away, and slid off his lap, hands dragging over the planes of Steve's chest as he knelt. Steve's eyes looked dark as he watched Bucky undo his fly and drag his pants and briefs down to mid-thigh.

Steve was already hard, his cock flushed and jutting up. Bucky wrapped his flesh hand around him and Steve groaned. Bucky licked the head of his cock, tasted the faint bitterness of his pre-come. Steve spread his legs wider, and Bucky swallowed him down in one motion.

"Fuck, Bucky," Steve said above him, his voice rough, and Bucky set a quick rhythm. As much as he would have liked to linger, they _were_ at work and they really didn't have long.

Steve put his arm over his face and bit into the meat of his forearm, but he was still making little groans and _oh_ s and _Bucky_ s, and Bucky popped the button on his own pants and started jacking himself off furiously to the noises Steve made.

Steve's free hand clutched the armrest of the chair and _fuck_ , Bucky was never going to be able to sit in that chair again without thinking about this moment, about Steve above him and the long line of his throat with his head thrown back.

Steve let out one more strangled "Bucky," and his cock pulsed in Bucky's mouth, and he was coming. Bucky groaned around his cock and worked himself more furiously until he came as Steve went soft in his mouth.

Bucky didn't let himself move for a moment, then reached out to steal Maryann's kleenex box off her desk, gently letting Steve slip out of his mouth.

"Fuck," Steve said softly, tucking himself in and doing up his fly.

"Yeah," Bucky said, cleaning himself off and disposing of the tissue in the trash can under his desk. He'd have to empty that out later tonight so that no one would ever know how many kleenex had died that day.

"I still need a shirt," Steve said.

Bucky grabbed the duffel bag that lived beneath his desk instead of one of the button-down shirts hanging on the shirt rack next to extra chef's coats and aprons. Bucky wasn't small, but there was no way one of his button-ups could contain Steve's chest. Instead, he dug out one of the shirts that a vineyard had gifted him (Ravenswood: No Wimpy Wines, it proclaimed) and held it up against Steve's chest.

"Give this one a try," Bucky said.                       

Steve pulled it over his head. It was very tight across the chest, straining pitifully over his biceps, and looser through the waist than most of his shirts. Steve tugged at the extra fabric, frowning.

"Don't worry, pal." Bucky grabbed the loose cotton and pulled him closer for a kiss before releasing him. "You still look good to me." He unlocked the door.

Steve reached over to smooth his hair back behind his ears. "Thanks for the shirt." He hooked his fingers through Bucky's belt loops and dragged him closer.  "Don't think I didn't notice that you took care of me and yourself too." 

Entirely outside of his conscious volition, Bucky shivered. Steve noticed, and smiled. His hand caught Bucky's, and Bucky squeezed it. "Yeah," he said, "you can catch me up later." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be a short piece of FLUFF but then i thought about how Bucky would react to Steve's shirt falling apart and HERE WE ARE. 
> 
> TY for the prompt, annaslug, I hope you enjoy!


	3. Graduation Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony isn't upset that his dad didn't come to his graduation. Not at all. Oh hey look, someone did show up after all.
> 
> This chapter is G. 
> 
> (Mentions of Tony's self-destructive habits, including drugs and alcohol)

🤖

Tony wonders if he might be about to die.

It certainly feels like it. The sun is hot overhead, and everything is bright, and Tony maybe, _possibly_ , shouldn't have done shots last night. At least, probably not on top of the cocaine and ecstasy. But he'd been working through his feelings about Howard missing _another_ MIT graduation so something had to give.

The graduation speaker is rambling through some bullshit. All the graduate students are packed into Killian Court waiting to get their pieces of paper. Tony doesn't really need another degree in robotics, but once this is over, he'll have one. It doesn't matter anyway. He wishes Rhodey could be here.

It's all right, though, it's fine. His parents are in Europe, Rhodey is deployed somewhere, flying a combat helicopter, and Aunt Peggy is... well, who knows, actually. She's off being a spy. It's probably classified. But it doesn't _matter_. Tony is an adult who is fine, just fine, with being all by himself on graduation day. Probably some of his classmates will _also_ be alone after this and maybe he'll find someone to have a drink or a snort or a fuck with later. 

After all the paper is passed over and the hands are shaken, the crowd starts to melt away. Tony doesn't bother to try to get up—there's no one waiting for him and no reason to push through the crowd when if he sits here for ten minutes the place will empty out—but when the crowd does clear, it turns out, to his great surprise, someone’s here for him after all.

"Fucking _great_ ," he mutters under his breath, but because he is not actually as much of a jerk as everyone thinks, he stands and goes to see Sergeant Twitchy, the World War Two relic that Howard's latest project and the (current) reason he's distant and uninvolved with his son's life.

As usual, James Buchanan Barnes looks like shit. Not that there's anything wrong with the source material: Tony can reluctantly admit that he'd be a good-looking man if he ever smiled, or slept enough that the bags under his eyes went away. Or cut his stupid hair. If Tony ran into someone who looked like Barnes but with an entirely different personality, he'd probably do him, is what he's saying, and ew, wait, why is he saying that? You know what, never mind this entire train of thought. 

Tony's head throbs in time with his footsteps as he crosses over to his visitor. This day just keeps getting better.

"Hey, Sarge, what are you doing here?" Tony says instead, just to see Twitchy do his thing. He hates being called by his former army rank, and predictably, he flinches infinitesimally when Tony says it.

"Heard you were graduating," he says hoarsely. He says everything hoarsely. Tony doesn't think he talks very much to anyone but _maybe_ his dad and Aunt Peggy, which is sort of sad if he thinks about it, but he doesn't want to feel sorry for Murderbot. Does no one but him remember that the dude tried to kill his parents?

"Did Aunt Peg send you in her place?" Tony pushes his sunglasses up his nose. It's a pretty poor replacement if she did.

"No." Barnes doesn't elaborate any further. He's got a gift bag looped over his left arm, and he peels it off and shoves it at Tony. "Congratulations," he says, in the monotone way he says everything.

Tony takes the bag, completely nonplussed. There are a few things wrapped in newspaper ( _newspaper_ , Jesus) and on top is a bottle of water and a package of ibuprofen. Barnes raises several significant notches higher in Tony's estimation. Tony pops the ibuprofen and unscrews the water immediately. "Thanks," he says, which is probably the most polite complete sentence he's ever spoken in this man's company. He feels good about himself as a human being.

"You're welcome," Barnes says, and just watches him. Under that flat stare, Tony pulls out the obvious bottle-shaped chunk of newsprint and unwraps it.

"Aunt Peg's favorite claret, way to go, Cyborg," he says.

Barnes shrugs. "It's good."

What is this, sharing hour? Tony unwraps the small box, ignoring the faint smudge of newsprint on his fingertips, and sees...a watch. A pocket watch, actually, small and tasteful, engraved with his initials and the date.

"Everyone should have one," Barnes says, as if Tony doesn't have a dozen watches at home. But. He doesn't have a pocket watch, it's true. And it's nice that someone came to his graduation. To support him, maybe, though who knows what really goes on behind those dead eyes.

"We should drink the wine," Tony decides. His headache is starting to fade, but a hair of the dog will help more than the ibuprofen did.

Barnes cocks his head. "Right now?"

"Sure. I know a burger place. We can grab a bite and toast my fancy new degree."

Barnes's face does something behind his greasy glam rock mop of hair. Is he—? Tony thinks he's trying to smile. It's like watching someone try to put together a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded. It is actually sad-making watching him try to have a human feeling, and another piece of Tony's antipathy crumbles away, not that he’d admit it if asked.

"Yeah," Tony says. "We're going to toast my degree and say nice things about Aunt Peg. It'll be fun."

"I'd like that," Barnes says, and shoves his hands into his pockets. They start walking. The sun is out, bugs are buzzing, and all at once the air feels full of possibilities. Barnes shoots a look at him. "My treat." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have Tony getting a grad degree here because according to the MCU, he got his undergrad in 1987. This takes place after Bucky's a year or two into his Hydra-unfuckening and before he really starts working on the whole being a person thing. He's trying though!


	4. No Nutritional Value

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy surprises Bucky with some birthday gifts; they have a chat about what Bucky might do after he's finished taking down Hydra.
> 
> This chapter rating is gen.

**1995**

💄

"All right, Zachary, I'm finished for the day."

Peggy Carter was already pulling on her jacket. Her secretary frowned, looking down at the planner on his desk. She'd blocked out the afternoon some weeks ago and told him to move her meetings. As her personal secretary, he was privy to some of the codes she used, and he'd met her upcoming appointment once, when she'd been handing over a data packet for a very particular op. She trusted Zachary, had vetted him and picked him out of the ranks of SHIELD herself. Even when she hadn't been certain of nearly anyone else at SHIELD, she'd been certain of him.

"Is the Stark house a secure location? Are you bringing extra security?" Zachary caught her eye, his expression concerned.

"It's not that kind of meeting," she said.

"But—"

"Don't worry about me, Zack." She picked up her handbag. "Have a good weekend. I'll see you Monday."

Her heels clicked as she walked down the hall, aware of the looks she was getting from agents and employees. She was not known for leaving early, but it was a special occasion.

She stopped to pick up the packages and suitcase she had left at the front desk, outside security, and then went to take a car from the motor pool. It was not quite a three-hour drive to Maria and Howard's house on Montauk, and she relaxed as the miles ticked by, let the concerns of the work week fall away. They never left her completely; that was the nature of her job. But she could set them aside for a time.

James wasn't able to do that. Maybe someday.

He was waiting for her at the Stark house. She couldn't see him when she pulled up, of course. No doubt he was in one of the upstairs rooms with the picture windows, or possibly on the roof, or in the trees, watching her through a scope.

It ought to have made her shoulders prickle, but she trusted him.

She touched up her lipstick in the rearview mirror before she stepped out of the car. James wouldn't care, but she did. She pressed her lips together, nodded at her reflection, then pulled her overnight bag and her packages out of the back seat.

The air smelled of salt, and seagulls called, wheeling raucously overhead. Howard's house was on the beach—the ocean side, not the bay—and the sky was blue in patches between gray clouds. A brisk wind came off the water, and Peggy shivered a little in her jacket; it was colder here than in the city. She took her bags and her packages to the door and pressed the buzzer.

James didn't answer the door. Instead, he appeared behind her; from where, even she couldn't tell. 

She didn't jump. She'd been expecting something of the sort.

"James," she said, and turned to get a look at him.

He looked—well. He looked better than he had, but that wasn't saying all that much. His face had filled in a little, but there were still such dreadful hollows under his eyes. She supposed they would be there until his self-assigned mission was over. Probably for a long time after.

His hair was a dark tangle on top of his head. She had offered to have someone cut it for him; she had offered to do it herself. He'd said no both times, the first time with a jerky shake of his head, the second with a muttered, "They're going to know it's me when they see me." She could respect a man who recognized the dramatic potential in a situation.

He was wearing all black, combat boots, jeans, a zippered sweatshirt over a plain black t-shirt. Tony kept giving him t-shirts from grunge bands—"since he has the look down anyway, Aunt Peg, tell him to get some flannel"—but James apparently didn't see the point in them.

"Margaret," he said, dipping his chin. One of these days she would get him to call her Peggy, but he'd had a nickname once that he couldn't quite yet bear to use, and she thought that was the source of his discomfort with her own. She’d told him to call her Peggy when he was ready, and she didn’t need to say anything else. It wasn’t like he’d forget. When she left, she would offer to shake his hand, and he would probably accept it, but when they first saw each other, it was best to leave him his space.

"May I come in?" she said.

He opened the door, and, to her surprise, took her suitcase from her. They walked inside together.

In typical Stark style, the house was large and opulently-decorated. The marble floors showed the reflection of the clouds; the windows on the beach side of the house were floor-to-ceiling glass. The water looked a dark gray-blue beneath the cloudy sky, not unlike James's eyes. There were guest rooms on both floors. He raised a questioning eyebrow at her, as per usual, and she indicated the ground-floor room, as per usual. He slept upstairs, for whatever value of sleep his insomnia allowed him, and it was easier on him if she was on a different floor. Less for him to keep track of, most likely. He dropped her suitcase in the room she indicated, and looked a question at the packages in her hand.

"Those are for later," she said. "I'll take them to the kitchen."

A quarter hour later, they were in the kitchen as well, and Peggy had opened the refrigerator to see that Howard's people had followed her instructions, bless them. She pulled out cheese and crackers and a tray of crudités, and set them on the kitchen island. James watched her every move, his eyebrows rising. They had met often to debrief, to run through ops, occasionally for medical purposes, and for what she privately thought of as his interpersonal instruction, but she hadn't told him why she wanted to see him today.

"Try the cheese," she said. "It's a Saint André. I think you'll like it.'"

He did as instructed, spreading it over a cracker. He chewed for a moment, face impassive. "High nutritional value?" he tried.

"Not particularly," she said, "but it tastes good."

She pulled a bottle of wine out of the wine rack on the counter and passed it over to him. "You do the honors, and I'll get us some glasses."

He found a corkscrew and peeled the foil off the bottle. They'd drunk wine together before, and he knew better than to tell her that it would do nothing for him. They'd had those conversations in the past. She still wasn't certain how much he enjoyed it, but enough to keep drinking it with her now and again. He would tell her no, these days, if he wanted to.

He looked at the label. "We've had this one before.” She opened her mouth to ask, but he beat her to it. "I liked it," he said. 

She smiled as she set the glasses in front of him. "I'm glad." She watched him pour, each glass precisely even, and once he'd set the bottle down, she picked up her glass and looked at him expectantly.

He picked the other glass up. "What are we toasting?"

"You, James." He took a sip when she did, but his eyebrows were drawn together in incomprehension. "It's your birthday."

He set the glass down hard enough for the wine to slosh a bit, and his metal fingers curled around the edge of the kitchen counter. "My—I didn't know." He closed his eyes for a second, then looked at her. "How did you know?"

"I did a bit of research, is all. I didn't think of it till last year, I'm afraid, and it was already too late to celebrate."

His eyebrows drew together again, and then his face relaxed. "Last year wouldn't have been good anyway," he said. "I wasn't..." He bit his lip in thought for a moment. "Thank you," he finished.

"Of course," she said. "Do you want your presents now?"

"Presents?" There was such honest confusion in his face, she wanted to scream, or throttle every egomaniacal fool in Hydra who'd thought _this man would make a wonderful weapon_ and wiped his memory and his choices away. She didn't let any of that show in her face or voice or body language, of course. She stayed lax, leaning against the back of the kitchen barstool, her hand curled loosely around the stem of her glass. Most of those fools were dead, and the rest of them would be soon. It wasn't her hand that would do the job, though she'd have done it gladly; it was James's.

"I brought you some things." She smiled despite the ache in her chest. She hadn’t known him before, but her friends had been his friends once, and she was sorry to have missed the easy young man that he had been. "Birthday gifts are traditional."

What to get the assassin who has everything was a difficult question to answer, but she hadn't been choosing gifts for an assassin. James unwrapped a soft blue sweater that would bring out his eyes; a boxed set of the Earthsea trilogy, which the children had made Angie read to them over and over but Peggy still hadn't grown sick of; a blank journal, a fountain pen, and some bright green ink; and a few bottles of a cabernet sauvignon that Peggy was quite fond of.

James ran his hand along the sweater, a strange expression on his face. "This is—this is..." Peggy waited, slathering more cheese on a cracker. He watched her, and something about his eyes looked a little lost. Then he nodded. "This is all like the cheese, isn't it? And the wine. No nutritional value, just..."

"Precisely," Peggy told him. "The sweater's not for missions, it just feels good. The books aren't for intel, but I thought you might enjoy them. You can write whatever you like in the notebook." She shrugged. "You can drink the wine with me, or with Howard and Maria, or by yourself, or with anyone at all."

He lifted his glass and took a sip, whether for the flavor or simply to give him time to process, she had no way of knowing.

"Have you thought about what you'll do when all of this is over?" she said. "There are less than ten targets remaining. This time next year, you might be done. Hydra will be gone, or close to it."

He leaned back. "I could—I could come in to SHIELD?" It was a question, a legitimate question, but there was a wrinkle in the center of his forehead that made her think he was more uncertain about that prospect than he sounded.

"I'm sure I could find a use for you, if that's what you wanted, but you don't have to. There's plenty of time to decide. We give agents breaks after big ops. You should take one too, think through your options. Whatever it is you most want to do, I'll help you do it."

"When all this is done," he said slowly, and she nodded.

They talked about other things after that. The sunset painted the clouds and the water burgundy and orange. They grilled the steaks Howard had had left for them, and opened another bottle of wine, and ate the cake she'd brought with her from the city.

She poured the last of the second bottle into their glasses, and they watched the stars between the breaks in the clouds. 

It was late, and she was getting tired, not precisely drunk, but loose and fuzzy around the edges. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"Thanks," he said. "This was a good birthday."

"I'm glad," she said, and she was, fiercely glad that she'd had anything at all to do with one of his good days.

He tapped his glass against hers one last time and drained the last sip. "I'll see you in the morning, Peggy."

He ghosted up the stairs, a little less invisibly than usual with his arms full of gifts.

She drained her glass and rinsed it out, and set it next to his by the sink.

In the morning, she'd go back to the city, and help him plan his next operation; and he'd go back to his bloody work; and someday, she hoped, let her help him do something besides fight.

And maybe, eventually, she'd get to call him by his nickname they way he used hers tonight; the name by which their mutual friends once knew him. 

💄

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 102nd, Bucky Barnes! 
> 
> Thank you to [calendulae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calendulae/pseuds/amsch) for suggesting the prompt of Bucky and Peggy and her wine. Hope this hit the spot! <3 <3 <3


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